Contents

Mikael Åkerfeldt said of the album, "I wanted to do something more melodic with this album, so there's stronger vocal melodies and more melodies overall for this album."[4] Greg Kennelty of Metal Injection said the album does not contain "growls or death metal vocals".[5] He also described the album as "the missing link between Damnation and Ghost Reveries or if Heritage was written directly after Ghost Reveries without Watershed having ever existed."[5]

Pale Communion was mostly well received by critics. Allmusic's Thom Jurek called the album more focused and refined than Heritage and also called it nearly unlimited in its creativity. Dom Lawson of The Guardian called it an admirably coherent collection of songs that are as uncompromisingly intricate and strange as they are incisively melodic. The album holds a 75 out of 100 rating on Metacritic, which means generally favorable.